ሕብረ፥ቅላጼ / SIDE Harmony 2014 | Page 17

The Purpose of LifeBackgroundAfter the philosophical and ideological foundation of my youth had shattered, I made it my voluntary duty to make this model, the Harmony Model of Life, just for my own purpose of understanding life; but now it happened to come to this light. To help or stir; for a smile or sneer... I don’t know... Whatever the case, I would not mind, since it has helped me. Along this path I had to go through some spiritual, at the beginning bitter and at the end an enlightening experience, which recently had its resolution in the freedom of my mind, body and spirit. After this state of existence, I had only to struggle with time to understand, relish and quench my thirst for knowledge. Any knowledge, whose purpose is enlightening and freeing the human species to celebrate its full liberty and perfection at the end, was welcome. I am still at the beginning, though I feel the rest is more or less only a question of time to bring the flower of knowledge to blossom. Along this state of mind, my object of reference was Ethiopia - my roots- and my personal experience. Fortunate and unfortunate, blunders and maturing, I had always in mind my involvement and social engagement in a movement, which, irrespective of its healthy and noble cause for social justice, obscured by a dogmatic “communist” ideology, was condemned to pass through a historical period, which had swept a substantial section of the world and has ended in our case with the sacrifice of very dear friends and thousands of the Ethiopian youth with their dreams, intellect and energy. Though the legacy of the last generation, which has consummated much of its energy through celebrating traditions, contradictions, differences, partisanship and above all violence, has still a firm grasp of the new one, now after almost three decades, I hope that a new generation is coming up with a highly respectful energy for a change, development and an aspiration to be part of the enlightened human movement and determine its own destiny and live in peace. Moreover, hoping that all active political forces uproot and denounce this legacy not only in principle but also in practice, they would step forward to take hold of the right human spirit of today and commit themselves for the harmony of life in the sense of resolving contradictions and differences, giving room for all shades of life to live and work together for a higher purpose. Only beautiful rhetoric for peace and democracy is not sufficient and should not however disguise the reality. In the recent past, for those of us who had the fortune of having the least glimpse of genuine enlightenment and are ready to learn from the dark experience, the reality counter to this spirit had made us sick at heart, with the consequence of becoming passive, leaving it for history to take care of its own course. This was, instinctively my case until the end of 2004. During the last years, since I stopped my active political engagement, in the course of my “search” (not research) for truth”, at moments when the spirit of th